Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

IQ2 HISTORY OF PERSIA.
whole character of the man and horse resembles very
much the huge metal-covered knights to be seen
in illuminated copies of Froissart's Chronicles. This
sculpture has been much damaged by the Arabs, and
there are no intelligible remains of the inscriptions once
engraven on it. The details have, however, been
worked out with great care, and, with the groups above,
afford accurate and valuable specimens of the royal
and military costumes of the period.
The sides of the arch are covered with representations
of the sports of the field, wild boar and stag hunts. Many
of 'the persons are mounted, while boats also appear,
probably to indicate a marshy country intersected by
small lakes, from these, sportsmen are discharging their
arrows ; while ponderous elephants, with their riders,
plunge through the bushes in every direction. Two of
the boats are filled with harpers, perhaps women, in a
third are men with pipes.
In the centre of the scene is
a boat, in which stands a personage in stature gigantically
taller than any of the other figures, and a little
lower in the line of the hunt is a second figure
slightly smaller than the first, with a halo or saintly
an arrow
glory round his head. This figure is receiving
from one of his attendants, and a woman sits near him
in the same boat, playing on the harp. The bas-relief
of the figure under the arch, as well as the similar
figures on the coins, represent the women as unveiled,
thus shewing that they were not at that time as rigidly
secluded as they have been since the enforcement of
the Muhammedan religion.
On the opposite side of the arch is another relief,
representing the chase of the deer. On this the